For you garbage collectors out there...

[tallyho8]

Here you will be charged with theft if you pull stuff out of the recycle tubs. Once you put it in the tub and put it by the street, all of the contents belong to the recycling company.

It's the same way here. first they charge you to haul the recyclables away, but if someone else takes them for free, they get charged with theft.

This reminds me of after Katrina in New Orleans, the city was paying a contractor about $40 a car to haul off all of the thousands of flooded cars on city streets. One scrap metal dealer started hauling them off for free and crushing them and he got charged with theft.

Someone has their finger in the pie.

 

[Bird]

We dumped (pun intended) Waste Management two years ago. We had them for our home trash pickup AND they had the contract for our local mandatory, involuntary recycling program.

You didn't say just how much you paid for garbage pickup, and I know it's different all over the country, even with the same company. It sounds as if individuals pick their company in your area, but here W.M. has a contract with the city. It costs us $9.77 a month on our water bill and they come every Monday, rain or shine, holiday or not. Even when Christmas fell on a Monday, they ran their route. Of course, they pick up once a week. And if we never used their service, we'd still have that $9.77 a month to pay on the water bill.

Before we bought this place, the city we lived in used the same company, but the contract was for twice weekly pickup; Wednesday and Saturday (so they work on Saturday some places), but it cost us $14.01 a month.

Waste Management's offices and landfill are 13.5 miles from my house, and I can haul garbage there myself at not cost; just have to show my drivers license and a water bill, and when I've done larger pruning jobs on my trees, I've hauled the brush there myself (two truckloads one day) because that's easier than cutting it to 4' lengths and tying it in bundles.

Our recycling is still voluntary. They used to provide 18 gallon bins (green plastic box) on request only, but then they delivered the 35 gallon, wheeled "garbage" cans with hinged lids to every house. These containers even have serial numbers on them. But it's still voluntary. And since it's just the 2 of us, sometimes I only set that can out every 2 weeks instead of every week.

If you found better service and/or better prices, I sure don't blame you for changing. I would, too. But in this area, I just don't see how we could beat Waste Management. I wasn't kidding when I said they take anything 2 men can get into the truck. I've seen them take recliners, and even sofas, in addition to bookcases, lumber and other scrap from remodeling jobs.

 

[Taylortractornut]

Dont worry about the trashmen, like others said the men scavenge for a little extra cash. I work in a private landfill and the treasures abound lol. One thing that they also may look for is anything prohibited. I can only take inert matter where I work, no capacitors batteries, magnetrons, smoke alarms ect. Our town land fill is a rubbish site, but they have a transfers station for the household waste. The bigger main sites around the country have sensors set up that can detect a smoke detector in a whole 80 cubic yard load. Same goes for a magnetron or other waste with radiation.


My wife an I are worried about ID theft so you set up a bottomless burner and smoke all our bills and paper. the plastics go with me to work to the house hold dumpster to save from having to deal with the trash bins.

 

[jinman]

You didn't say just how much you paid for garbage pickup, and I know it's different all over the country, even with the same company. It sounds as if individuals pick their company in your area, but here W.M. has a contract with the city. It costs us $9.77 a month on our water bill and they come every Monday, rain or shine, holiday or not. Even when Christmas fell on a Monday, they ran their route. Of course, they pick up once a week. And if we never used their service, we'd still have that $9.77 a month to pay on the water bill.

Hooboy! How I'd love to have a garbage bill that cheap. We get pickup once a week to dump our 90 gal container (everything must be in the container). There's one guy driving and nobody else. It's a private company, IESI, and we are certainly rural where rates are expected to be more, but $43 per month is a bit steep in my estimation. One of our neigbors takes his bag of garbage with him to a little corner gas station/store in Sunset where they charge him $2 a bag to throw it into their dumpster. I guess if I weren't so lazy, I could do the same.

We had a small private startup trash hauler with rates around $25 per month, but IESI bought them out. I believe there are 8 people who use IESI on our little 2 mile dead-end road, so we are paying about $75 per week to have the truck drive up and down our road and pick up trash.

I could also haul my trash to the county dump, but it seems I cannot get into and out of a dumpsite or landfill without getting something in my tires that causes a flat within a week. When I lived in town and drove to the landfill, I had three trips and three flats over a year's period. That's when I quit hauling my own stuff to the landfill. I don't blame the landfill, it's just something that happened. I don't know how you'd ever prevent those kinds of hazards in a landfill.

 

[Bird]

Wow, Jim, that does seem high. Of course we moved back to town just over 7 years ago, but before that, down in the boondocks, we were paying a guy $12 a month for once a week garbage pickup; a one man operation. And almost no one set out garbage cans. We used plastic bags, sometimes cardboard boxes. Navarro County had one Saturday a YEAR when we could haul stuff ourselves to the landfill without paying. Any other time, the cost depended on the size of what you were hauling, with a minimum of $5. And on that one Saturday, there would be pickup trucks, many with trailers, lined up down the shoulder of the road for a mile or more.

I now make one or two trips a year to the Waste Management landfill with brush and limbs piled on my little Ford Ranger, and so far no flats. You ARE supposed to have a tarp over the brush, even if it's tied down, but I don't have a problem with that. You don't actually go out to where the trucks are dumping. They have a paved, slightly elevated place with a curb and some of the "roll off" containers with the tops just at grade, so you just back up to one of them and shove everything off into one of those containers. Of course, it IS dirty around there, as you might expect, so I don't want to go in wet weather.

 

[turnkey4099]

I haven't seen it mentioned but...

The legal rule on garbage is that once it is set out for pickup, it is no longer your property. That has been fought through the courts so complaints about people sorting through it will get one nowhere.

Harry K

 

[2manyrocks]

That's my understanding, too. When you abandon the property by throwing it away, it's no longer your property. But it would make anyone unhappy to see the garbage guys sorting through a person's trash before they even put it in their truck.

Before we had attendants at our local trash dumpsters, some folks would scavenge through the trash all the time.

 

[brin]

2manyrocks, I agree with you ..it would make you uncomfortable to look out and see the garbage man or others rummaging through your trash. We shred or burn all of out personal information and even peel the labels off prescription medicine bottles but we all make mistakes from time to time and can accidentally leave something in the trash, so in this day and age with ID theft and who knows what else going on being very careful should be the rule. If we don't protect ourselves and our privacy no one else will.

 

[MossRoad]

You didn't say just how much you paid for garbage pickup, and I know it's different all over the country, even with the same company. It sounds as if individuals pick their company in your area, but here W.M. has a contract with the city.

That explains some things... we live in the county, where you choose your own trash hauler. In the city (South Bend, IN) where we lived you used to be able to choose your own hauler, until the city took it over and made it mandatory. South Bend is big on taking over services to secure government jobs for their cronies. They took over animal control from the humane society and took over street paving instead of hiring local contractors, too.

Recycling is mandatory county-wide. One town(Mishawaka) has its own recycling program, but all other county residents are required to pay for recycling through South Bend.

Its kind of weird here...
There are three large governing bodies:
The City of South Bend
The City of Mishawaka
The County of St. Joseph.
To get anything passed county wide, it takes two of the three largest governing bodies to vote for it.
So, for instance, they wanted to raise the local option income tax last year, so they voted.
Mishawaka voted NO.
South Bend voted YES.
So it was up to the county commissioners. All of the county commissioners who represented people that live in the county voted NO.
HOWEVER, and this is the sick beauty of South Bend, Indiana, the City of South Bend is within the County of St. Joseph, so the city residents have county commissioners AND a city council who both get to vote on everything. Of course, the county commissioners who represent city dwelling residents in South Bend voted YES, so the tax was passed.

Same thing happened with mandatory recycling. Most folks did not want it, but South Bend's double votes got it passed.

That's how all of the county dwellers get hosed by the City of South Bend on just about everything... they have double representation.

Anyhow, don't want to get too far into politics, but that is how government works here, where I live.

 

[Stimw]

Sorry to tell you Tallyho8 , They paid $1200. PER CAR removal after Katrina, many were late model that the hauler could have made another fortune dismantling and selling parts!!!! IIRC the government paid $25 million for vehicle removal when they EASILY could have let a contract to have it done for FREE for the salvage!